Not Betsy Rosses Not Betsy Rosses
For a while I thought about designing a flag. Something bigger, blurrier than "nation." I imagined a hovering planet on a field of blue, and "United We Stand" could be written un...
Feb 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Eileen Myles
Lost in America Lost in America
"When I write, I bid farewell to myself," Jimmy Santiago Baca said in 1992. "I leave most of what I know behind and wander through the landscape of language." This is a memorable...
Feb 14, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ilan Stavans
Filipineza Filipineza
In the modern Greek dictionary, the word "Filipineza" means "maid." If I became the brown woman mistaken for a shadow, please tell your people I'm a tree. Or its curli...
Jan 31, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Bino A. Realuyo
‘The Ghat of the Only World’: Agha Shahid Ali in Brooklyn ‘The Ghat of the Only World’: Agha Shahid Ali in Brooklyn
The first time that Agha Shahid Ali, the great Kashmiri poet, spoke to me about his approaching death was in April of last year. The conversation began routinely. I had telephone...
Jan 24, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Amitav Ghosh
Lines Beyond the Nakba Lines Beyond the Nakba
Mahmoud Darwish burst on the Arab poetic scene in the mid-1960s with the publication in Beirut of poems written while he was living in Haifa, Israel, and working as a translator ...
Jan 24, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Taline Voskeritchian
Three Poems Three Poems
* Zero built a nest In my navel. Incurable Longing. Blood too-- From violent actions It's a nest belonging to one But zero uses it And its pleasure is its ow...
Jan 17, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Fanny Howe
2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize 2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize of $10,000, awarded annually for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States by an American, is administered mutually by th...
Jan 17, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ann Lauterbach
Not All, Only a Few Return Not All, Only a Few Return
(after Ghalib) Just a few return from dust, disguised as roses. What hopes the earth forever covers, what faces? I too could recall moonlit roofs, those nigh...
Jan 10, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Agha Shahid Ali
Forever Forever
for Donald Revell Even Death won't hide the poor fugitive forever; on Doomsday he will learn he must live forever. Is that nectar the cry of the desert prophets? See angels pour the Word through a sieve forever. On the gibbet Hallaj cried I Am the Truth. In this universe one dies a plaintive forever. When parents fall in love with those blond assassins, their children sign up for Western Civ forever. With a brief note he quit the Dead Letter Office-- O World, they've lost Bartleby's missive forever. Am I some Sinai, Moses, for lightning to char? See me solarized, in negative forever. In the heart's wild space lies the space of wilderness. What won't one lose, what home one won't give forever! A perfect stranger, he greeted herself in joy-- Not to be Tom, how lovely--she said--I'm Viv forever! Jamshed, inventor of wine, saw the world in his cup. Drink, cried his courtiers, for he won't live forever. He lives by his wits, wears blue all day, stars all night. Who would have guessed God would be a spiv forever? Will the Enemy smile as I pass him on the street? I'm still searching for someone to forgive forever. As landscapes rise like smoke from their eyes, the blind hear God swear by the fig and the olive forever. The Hangman washes his hands, puts his son to sleep. But for whom, come dawn, he's decisive forever? Alone in His Cave--His Dance done--He's smeared with ash. The Ganges flows from the head of Shiv forever. You've forgiven everyone, Shahid, even God-- Then how could someone like you not live forever?
Dec 20, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Agha Shahid Ali
A Poet Duly Noted A Poet Duly Noted
The 'Collected Poems' is an extraordinary book, says reviewer Ian Tromp.
Dec 13, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Ian Tromp